ExxonMobil tops 1 million boe/d in Permian in Q2 after Pioneer buy: CEO

Three months after ExxonMobil’s nearly $60 billion acquisition of independent E&P company Pioneer Natural Resources, the merged major is producing more than its long-awaited landmark goal of 1 million barrels of oil equivalent from the Permian Basin owing to that prized asset, ExxonMobil’s top executive said Aug. 2.

In the second quarter, “we once again set production records from our advantaged assets in Guyana and the Permian,” CEO Darren Woods said during a second quarter conference call.

“Including Pioneer, our Permian production surged to 1.2 million barrels [equivalent],” Woods said. “Including Pioneer, our Permian production volumes have more than tripled since 2019.”

“In Guyana, we started 2019 with zero production and we’ve grown to an average of 633,000 barrels per day gross [of oil] in the second quarter,” he added.

With Pioneer, ExxonMobil now expects more than 60% of its production will be generated from competitively advantaged assets by 2027, ExxonMobil Chief Financial Officer Kathy Mikells said in a prepared written supplement.

“We’ve also grown the current share of liquids in our Upstream portfolio to approximately 70% – the highest it’s been since Exxon and Mobil merged almost 25 years ago,” Mikells said.

Also, in Guyana scheduled work from temporary shutdown of the Liza Phase 1 and Phase 2 FPSOs should reduce volumes at the Exxon-operated Stabroek Block by about 80,000 b/d in the third quarter, she said. The shutdown is required to tie the FPSOs into the pipeline for an historic gas-to-energy project, which will feed gas to onshore Guyana industries.

ExxonMobil and Stabroek partners Hess Corp. and China’s CNOOC are producing from three FPSOs offshore that country.

Eyes completion of brief Guyana Liza 1 shutdown in early August
The work on Liza Phase 2 was completed in mid-July and Liza Phase 1 is expected to be completed in early August, she added. ExxonMobil’s part of the overall project – the 152-mile natural gas pipeline from the FPSOs – will be finished in Q4 2024 and commissioning will follow the government of Guyana’s completion of its 300-megawatt gas-fired onshore power plant.

In addition, ExxonMobil said it likely will have first output at Golden Pass LNG project in Port Arthur, Texas, in late 2025, after reaching a settlement with contractor Zachry Holdings after conflicts involving payments and other issues, Woods said.

“That venture is in the process … of re-staffing and getting started back up again,” he said. “Obviously, we’re in the very early days of that. So there’s still more work to be done.”

Currently, ExxonMobil’s estimate is a startup slippage of about six months, he said: “We had anticipated first LNG in the middle of next year, but we are now looking at probably the back end of 2025 for first LNG.”

ExxonMobil produced 4.358 million boe/d of liquids and natural gas in Q2, including 2.557 million b/d of liquids and 7.36 Bcf/d of natural gas.

By contrast, the company produced 3.6 million boe/d in Q2 2023, including 2.353 million b/d of liquids and 7.5 Bcf/d of natural gas.
Source: Platts